Week in Review – This Congressional Omnibus Spending Bill (HR 7617) is bad news.
The fall-out from Planned Parenthood’s admissions about Margaret Sanger’s participation in racist and white supremacist ideas and actions continues to spread across the country. According to the North State Journal, Rev. Dean Nelson, an African American minister and executive director for Human Coalition Action, has sent a letter to North Carolina’s Governor Roy Cooper asking him to fight racism and temporarily close all nine Planned Parenthood clinics in the state. In 2019, a new Planned Parenthood facility was opened in close proximity to a minority neighborhood. Referring to North Carolina’s history with eugenics, Nelson says that the new Charlotte facility is a “straightforward continuation of North Carolina’s racist history of selective sterilization.” When asked why he was sending this letter now, Nelson said that given North Carolina’s past history with eugenics, that maybe now was a good time to see if the state was still participating in it in “some way, shape or form.” “Systemic racism impedes, injures, and kills black lives. But no black life is as vulnerable as the life of a preborn child,” Nelson says in his closing paragraph. “Mr. Governor, if you truly want to fight racism, uphold human dignity, and defend black lives, then you have to protect the unborn from the racist abortion targeting of Planned Parenthood.”
Last week, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passed by a vote of 217-197 the appropriations omnibus H.R.7617, the Defense, Commerce, Justice, Science, Energy and Water Development, Financial Services and General Government, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act, for fiscal year 2021.
The bill contains several provisions that attack longstanding pro-life protections and seek to undermine pro-life executive actions. Examples of the anti-life provisions include language gutting the longstanding Dornan (DC Hyde) Amendment, language preventing enforcement of the Administration’s Protect Life (Title X) Rule, and language prohibiting the implementation of the Trump Administration’s Conscience Rule.
To see how your representative voted, go here.
The Trump administration then issued the following statement: “The Administration strongly opposes passage of H.R. 7617. Throughout the summer of last year, the Administration worked diligently with Congress to finalize a two-year budget agreement that set bipartisan spending limits for defense and non-defense expenditures, work that culminated in the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 (Public Law 116-37). This agreement included a proviso prohibiting poison pills – new riders, changes in mandatory programs, other changes in policy or conventions that allow for higher spending levels, or non-appropriations measures – unless agreed to on a bipartisan basis by the four leaders with the approval of the President. The agreement also included a provision maintaining ‘[c]urrent transfer funding levels and authorities’ unless the four leaders and the President agreed on changes. This compact was absolutely essential to the completion of all 12 appropriations bills in December 2019. H.R. 7617, however, includes a number of provisions that would blatantly violate both the letter and spirit of this agreement.” These include provisions that, for example, restrict needed transfer authorities, undermine President Trump’s policies to protect the unborn, and hurt the ability of the police to protect communities.
If H.R. 7617 were presented to the president in its current form, his advisors say they would recommend that he veto it.
ALL in the News – Judie Brown Appears on Texas-Based Radio Show; Hugh Brown Discusses Racist Planned Parenthood with Alan Keyes
Last week, ALL president Judie Brown was interviewed by Terry Lowry, host of The What’s UP radio program in Texas. The interview included the discussion of one of Judie’s previous commentaries, The False God of Woke.
This week, American Life League vice president Hugh Brown was interviewed by political commentator and former presidential candidate Alan Keyes. Hugh and Alan discussed the racist roots of Planned Parenthood. The interview will appear on the show “Let’s Talk America with Alan Keyes”.
Judie Brown’s weekly commentaries and press statements continue to be featured as a column on Renew America. This week’s Tuesday commentary, The leprosy of hate, was featured on the site’s front page.
Jim Sedlak’s Pro-Life Activism from Creation to Death is a weekly talk-radio program on the Radio Maria USA network. The show can be heard live every Friday at noon (Eastern Time) and is repeated on Saturdays (10 PM).
Video of the Week – Winning a pro-life oratory contest probably wasn’t something Molly Durchholz expected
Winning a pro-life oratory contest probably wasn’t something Molly Durchholz expected. Not only did she win first place, but she was awarded with speaking at the 2020 Right to Life banquet hosted by Right to Life of Southwest Indiana with keynote address by Vice President Mike Pence. Unfortunately, social distancing guidelines forced the organization to cancel its annual banquet. So Molly took to Instagram and asked her followers to listen to her pro-life speech.
Action Item of the Week – THE HELPLINE YOU SHOULD REMEMBER
1-888-221-HALO
The Healthcare Advocacy and Leadership Organization (HALO) has created a 24/7 Helpline that offers free and confidential information, support, and referrals for patients, their family members, and caregivers who have concerns about the treatment and care a patient is receiving in any healthcare setting, either at home or in a facility.
Some of the topics their Patient Advocates respond to most often are:
- How should I handle healthcare threats that my loved one is experiencing?
- I think my mom (dad, friend, …) died from drug overdosing in hospice. Am I crazy?
- What should I know about the drugs used by hospices?
- How can I find a pro-life hospice?
- The hospital is threatening to stop my loved one’s treatment, including tube-feeding. What can I do?
- What type of advance directive do you recommend?
- Should I have a do not resuscitate (DNR) order on file?
- What can you tell me about ventilators and “pulling the plug”?
You can get your answers at: 1-888-221-HALO
To sign up for HALO’s monthly e-newsletter—the HALO Herald—click here.
Pro-life Social Media – Dissolve the NRA for Wasting Millions? Why Not Planned Parenthood as Well?
When news hit that the attorney general of the country’s abortion capital, New York, was filing a lawsuit against the National Rifle Association for allegedly “diverting millions of dollars away from its charitable mission for personal use by senior leadership,” comparisons to the nation’s largest abortion non-profit were forthcoming. After all, audits of several Planned Parenthood affiliates revealed millions were stolen from federal and state governments for inflated Medicaid reimbursements.
New York's hypocrisy is absolutely insane. I'm not an obsessive NRA fan, but, um, there's another org (cough, Planned Parenthood) directly involved in the intentional and systematic killing of hundreds of thousands of the most innocent. But, you know, let's ignore that. Gross.
— Billy Hallowell (@BillyHallowell) August 6, 2020
No matter what the problem is with the @NRA, it's still killed zero people while leftist groups and organizations such as Planned Parenthood still have a staggering death count.
— Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) August 6, 2020
NYAG Letitia James is suing to dissolve the NRA. In other words she is suing to raise her stock in the Democrat Party. This is 100 percent about politics and Democrats are fine with it. But file a suit against Planned Parenthood and their hair would be on fire.
— Carmine Sabia (@CarmineSabia) August 6, 2020
Some Twitter folks didn’t like the comparison.
I can assure you as someone who has worked with Planned Parenthood, that org goes to incredible lengths to operate within the bounds of nonprofit law. They don’t even go near the lines for fear of prosecution. The NRA played fast & loose — and will suffer for it.
— Adam Winkler (@adamwinkler) August 6, 2020
He worked with Planned Parenthood, so it must not be corrupt, right?
You’re overlooking Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid fraud in Texas, California, and Illinois. https://t.co/KO2P4mludT
— American Life League (@AmerLifeLeague) August 6, 2020
DO NOT compare the NRA to Planned Parenthood, who commits loan fraud and profits from the sale of fetal tissue. One organization tries to protect the right to self-defense and the other turns a profit killing the defenseless. https://t.co/smPyRZ5bNI
— Alexandra DeSanctis (@xan_desanctis) August 6, 2020
Republicans should be going after Planned Parenthood this aggressively. Instead they had control of the White House and Congress and instead chose to keep giving the baby butchers half a billion a year in tax funding. Staggering cowardice. https://t.co/ebyKuwm3ri
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) August 6, 2020
Cowardice, indeed. Why are we still funding this thing!?!? If waste, fraud, and abuse is grounds for dissolving a non-profit as influential as the NRA, why not Planned Parenthood?
